Life
by Nocens
Summary: A killer and the perfect victim. GaaNaru, AU. No NCS


**A/N: **This proves it - I am mad! I mean it isn't beta-ed, a new category of fiction and totally fucked up but still my baby. It just spilled from my fingers while reading a text on knife-related injuries while listening to the Bleach soundtrack (Ichirin no Hana is a killer), and with a 38.9 temperature... at 5.30 in the morning.

Enjoy...or at least try to...**  
**

**Life **

"Hm, who might that be?"

Shikamaru looked up at his friend's enquiry.

At the entrance of the small smoke-filled bar was a tall, rather thin figure wrapped in a black trench coat.

He hurriedly looked away, shrugging a little too casually.

"Dunno. Want another drink Naruto?"

"Yeah, hit me", the blonde's attention hadn't wavered despite Shikamaru's subtle try to dismiss the new presence.

The next round of alcohol landed in front of the underage boy but their eyes as they looked at their amber choice of drug were anything but young.

And one of the pairs of eyes – the startlingly blue ones – was flicking to the side, where the figure of the coat had sat down. It pulled down the leather cowl and revealed a shock of rusty-red hair, a cold, haggard but handsome face and a pair of pale greenish eyes that were turned in the direction of Shikamaru's companion.

Shikamaru's hand tightened on the glass. Any second now…he dared a glance at the suddenly attentive blonde.

"I know who he is", he murmured and before Shikamaru could voice his objection his companion had picked up his glass and was moving against the general population of the bar.

The red-head had been recognized by most of the people, who were eager to get away from the boy.

Shikamaru watched his friend ask to sit and get ignored, and as a consequence inviting himself in the newly unoccupied chair on the red-head's left..

Shikamaru raised his hand for the next drink as he shot the previous like a pro. Well, he was, in a way.

His father was an alcoholic and his mother couldn't start her day without a shot of vodka and a portion of multi-colored pills.

He noticed Naruto was being himself- smiling, talking animatedly and had actually managed to wretch some of his target's attention.

Shikamaru didn't like that.

The attention of Sabaku no Gaara wasn't welcome to anyone who'd read a newspaper .

The red-head was only eighteen and had just last week walked out of juvenile detention center which doubled as psychiatric clinic due only to his father's fortune and connections. And it took one hell of a powerhouse to get the boy the mere three years in the clinic after it was uncovered he'd killed his own mother, her brother, and about seven other people from age ten to fifteen.

And he had not simply killed them. He had tortured them before the deed – each one different from the others. If was as if he was trying to come up with new and more interesting ways of applying his insanity.

Shikamaru glanced down at his glass to find it empty. He blinked uncomprehendingly for a second.

He wished the distorted glass bottom could finally dull his thoughts. They were always running, explaining, questioning. Yes, he was a genius – verified by at least ten different programs, including the organization he'd been recruited into since he was fourteen.

He didn't want that. Sometimes he envied Naruto.

Shikamaru would have to deal with this for at least thirty years more if he didn't finally go and blow his much valued brains out.

He ordered another drink then promptly emptied it.

Sometimes he wished he could understand Naruto's connection to both life and death. But looking at his friend chatting up a serial murderer he knew he never would.

He ordered again.

* * *

Gaara looked at the beautiful blonde at his side. So full of life. Eyes so …not innocent, yet strangely so.

He knew they would look perfect tearing up in pain, the blonde hair matted with blood, the lips breaking around a gag….

"…are you doing tonight?"

He shifted his attention to the words leaving those lips and shrugged before taking a drink, swirling the liquid around his mouth, letting its burn register before swallowing.

"Great! Can I come?"

He had to admit to another moment of interest at that. Had the boy not seen the news?

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, talking for the first time in…maybe two days? Three?

The blonde didn't respond as expected. Perhaps he was some psycho, the irony, who wanted to 'get to know' the infamous Gaara. He'd had that happen before.

"Sabaku no Gaara, ne?"

Gaara looked over the boy again. The grin, the bright eyes…the shadows behind them, the tension in the smaller frame. He looked away and finished his drink. Raising unceremoniously, throwing some cash on the counter.

It didn't mater, he had to get home.

He wasn't really surprised when the blonde followed him.

* * *

The only sign that the red-head was aware of his presence was the door that didn't close in his face after the hour-long walk trough the city.

Naruto looked around a murderer's apartment. It was strangely disappointing. The place was small – a kitchenette, a single room and bathroom, and completely bare with no decorations and so few personal touches they could have been overlooked. But Naruto knew what to look for, somehow knowing the man himself, despite never having seen him before.

In the kitchen there was a set of perfectly sharpened knifes, hanging on the wall. In the room there was a slim expensive laptop atop a banged table and a new-looking couch. The whole room was plunged into half-darkness as the only light was coming from between the blinds' slats. The other boy hadn't tune don't he lamp and was undressing, completely ignoring Naruto who had become unusually silent.

He saw the pale eyes flicker in his direction and knew the other would notice the chance in his stance, his expression – no longer so cheerful, faked. Who better to show yourself to than a murderer?

After all he thought he could understand the boy with the Ai scar on his forehead.

Said serial killer was standing in his half-unbuttoned jeans on the other side of the room. Naruto chuckled seeing the killer hadn't bothered with underwear. Somehow he hadn't expected him to.

"What do you want?"

Naruto chuckled again, eyes dancing in the light. Anticipation coiled around him as he shucked off his jacket and shirt. Hands falling to his belt, seeing the dispassionate look in the shadowed face. Sliding the bell out of the hoops he folded it between his hands, the way the orphanage headmaster had all those long years ago.

And stretched it towards the other boy.

The light played over the multitude of scars over the pale, trembling skin.

* * *

Somehow after a week of not answering his calls, Shikamatu didn't expect the blonde to be alive, much less in their usual seats at the bar.

He had stopped, to assure himself that he wasn't seeing ghost, but the bright blue, burning eyes could belong to no other.

They didn't say much outside the usual small talk as they ordered but Shikamaru was watching.

The eyes could not have belonged to another but the face they were set in was thinner, the bright blues set in darkened, bruised skin – as if the boy hadn't slept at all this past week. He may have been thinner too but it was hard to see under the big turtleneck and heavy jacket that hadn't come off the hunched shoulders.

But gods, those eyes! He had never seen them so…alive. Not since…

"Where have you been?", he asked though he knew, marveled at his friend's courage while wanting to chain him somewhere far away, protect him.

"With Gaara"

The way the blonde said the name, the way he absently reached for one of his thighs, as if wanting to rub but stopped, it spoke to Shikamaru more than words could.

He knew on that thigh there would be Sabaku no Gaara's mark and Shikamaru wanted to erase it but…those eyes.

To what ends would it be for him to rip his friend away from the one thing that had brought the spark in the deadened blues?

None.

So he ordered a bottle and discussed the weather and people's stupidity with his friend. Taking care to ignore the way he sat on one side, the way he favored his right hand, the peek of irritated bruises over his wrists as he reached for the bottle.

Enjoying the time he could while he could.

* * *

A month had passed by. Gaara looked upon the gaunt figure curled at the foot of the bloodied bed, a small smile on the sleeping face.

Naruto…was…different.

Gaara had spoken to him once. Answered when, the otherwise undemanding victim had asked about the scar on his forehead.

Had told him about his father, flashes of disgusted eyes, harsh pain, his blood on the sheets, his mother, weak, unable to protect, his uncle – worse than his father, hiding behind words of love.

And he had seen understanding in the blue eyes, despite the harsh, short words, before they clenched shut over a hiss of pain as Gaara's blade dragged over and over he mark on the pale thigh.

He had said he understood but Gaara hadn't asked how. A vague notion, connected to the crisscrossing scars, old, unattended, was there but he didn't need it.

Somehow this waif of a creature was giving him more than all his previous victims together.

He could feel the end near, could feel his heart thump in his chest at the sight of the blonde who came back and stayed, giving freely his blood, sweet, warm blood, to Gaara.

He could feel …love. And love equaled death.

Yes, he would give his blonde what the other had craved since the moment he had laid that belt in his hand.

* * *

Shikamaru could feel it coming. Could see the cancer finally eat out more than Naruto could bear.

The once golden hair was dull and limp, the skin was thin and waxy, the eyes set in veritable hollows, the wrists – stick thin, the once confident strut – a slow, careful gait.

Goddamnit! The doctors had said three months! Not one! They had….

Shikamaru met his friends eyes, seeing the dulled but not extinguished flame there.

And he couldn't look at that understanding smile, the acceptance in the small touch to his shoulder. And the way the other hand was rubbing at his thigh. Where His mark was.

"Naru- I-", Shikamaru didn't know what to say. What could he say? Goddamnit it wasn't fair!

"Shh. Can you do me a favor?", Naruto's voice was weak but so…calm. How could he be so calm?

"Anything"

Suddenly an envelope and a set of keys were in front of him.

Shikamaru choked and could not stop the tear from slipping over his cheek.

The blonde was moving, standing slowly and a pair of arms circled him.

"You were my only real friend, my best friend", the voice whispered in his ear and the sob just broke out.

"Forever…I am forever your friend", he managed to choke out before the arms left him, a small smile lingering against his skin.

And he couldn't look back to see him exit. Could hear the barman shout his usual farewell and he couldn't look at his friend…his best friend leaving.

The barman left a bottle of clear alcohol in front of him.

"On the house", he said.

* * *

Gaara looked away from the window as I entered and I smiled at him.

In just a month I had come to love my killer. Love him like no one before, love…the word seemed too small for what I felt. I hoped he knew that.

That night the sheets were clean and I laid, exhausted, atop of them, naked, as many times before. And he simply watched me.

I wonder what he was thinking?

That face was always cold, the eyes – so much evil inside them, unreadable. But then he would look at me and for a second I thought that he was seeing more than a willing victim. Perhaps I was deluding myself? But who would it hurt if I pretended?

"I love you"

The words slipped trough my lips before I could stop them, not that I had a reason of stopping them.

There was not a sound from the window.

I wished we would…make love. At least once. Maybe. He had never touched me in such a way. Always the blades and ropes and hard metal…

I was smiling, feeling exhaustion – e permanent visitor these days- creep up on me.

Before I drifted off I think I felt a hand ghost over my closed eyes.

* * *

Gaara watched his blonde as he fell into sleep. He watched him long into the night before going into the kitchen and taking out a small switch knife.

It was the same one he had killed his mother with.

He sat on the bed and moved the blonde in his grip, making sure he was holding tightly, so he wouldn't struggle.

The exhausted figure clung to him in sleep like a child, with utmost trust.

Gently he lifted he head back so it lay on his shoulder, feeling the dull hair, once gold against his skin the warm cheek against his.

He opened the knife and raised it. One quick, deep gash, a gurgle and a few useless twitches. The last strings of life that were clinging to the body.

Warm blood flowed over his hands, over his chest and neck, filling his nostrils with its metallic tang.

The body was still, the blood still flowing, a hand grasping at him in death.

He let his head fall to the side, resting against the lolling head against his shoulder.

It was perfect. His perfect victim.

* * *

He gently washed the effects of death from the body, gently running his hand over the dead skin, watching the half-closed eyes, the small almost-smile on the chapped lips.

He covered him in a sheet – white, for the innocence of those blue eyes and picked him up in his hands.

The dead head lolled against his shoulder, the raw cut across that thin neck stretching open, and Gaara rubbed his cheek over the soft hair.

He had died beautifully. So beautifully, he knew he would never again reach this…this.

It was pointless to even try. He had known even before that.

He walked out, leaving the entrance door open, barefooted, with his blonde's blood over his naked chest and jeans, cradling the dead body to his, feeling the warmth leave it.

* * *

The Police Station had erupted in chaos as soon as they had seen the all bloodied boy, standing with a bloodied, body-shaped sheet in his arms.

There had been shouts and guns drawn, Gaara didn't care. He had laid the body on a desk, gently and patiently allowed to be cuffed.

Had told them the murder weapon was in his back pocket and then when they'd shoved him in an interrogation room had told them about his perfect victim. Disinterested by their horror and disgust he had told them how he had killed his blonde.

* * *

The court procedures had been quick. His father had quickly disowned him so there was nothing stopping their so-called justice. He was given an adult trial and sentenced to Death.

For the first time since the police had seen him he had smiled as the slightly fearful jury had read its verdict. But he hadn't said a thing after his confession.

Silently he had sat in his cell and then continued to do so, on death roll.

It was barely a week before the sentence was applied.

Due to the extremity of the crime – the coroners had given files upon files of prolonged torture to his perfect victim – he was to be killed on the electric chair.

The youngest person to ever receive the chair.

He had refused the last meal.

He had refused the priest.

He sat in the chair calmly and refused any last words, watching his sister and brother trough the window in the auditorium among the sea of dark suits and reporters.

* * *

In the audience a brother and a sister watched as the body of their younger sibling convulsed, shaking, foam bubbling at the corner of his lips and finally falling motionless.

Trough a curtain of unshed tears a blond girl thought she saw him say something. A name.

Naruto.

**A/N:** Unusual for me to post a one-shot but still I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. It might kick me into finishing my chaptered GaaNaru fic and posting it, eh?


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